


Never Brought to Mind

by Amelia_Clark



Category: Supernatural
Genre: But mostly fluff, First Kiss, M/M, New Year's Eve, human!Cas, just a soupcon of angst, not a creeper horndog!Dean, seriously how has nobody mentioned end!verse yet, slight AU because S9 angries up my blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 22:48:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1112434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amelia_Clark/pseuds/Amelia_Clark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's go-to celebration is this: the reliable Twilight Zone marathon, and cheap champagne—he can usually polish off two bottles before falling asleep. The difference this year is that it’s not Sam passing a magnum back and forth, playing the game where they try to identify an episode during the first thirty seconds. Instead, it’s Cas sitting next to him, fighting champagne giggles a few gulps in and taken utterly by surprise by every single twist ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Brought to Mind

Dean’s been carrying it around for five years now, Zachariah’s bleak vision of his future—all their futures, turned to ashes. He’s tried to shake it, reminding himself they defeated Lucifer, they prevented the Croatoan plague, they fixed things.

But it’s fifteen minutes till 2014, here in this nth motel room, and he can’t help but obsess about what _has_ come true, and it’s almost worse than if it all did. Because there’s Sam, possessed by an angel. Because there’s Cas, fallen and human, innocence lost in the worst possible way.

And deep in the pit of his stomach, there’s the gnawing terror that Dean hasn’t fixed a goddamn thing.

New Year’s Eve has never really been a thing for him. It’s a good night to pick up women, not quite the “unattached drifter Christmas” of Valentine’s Day, but the liquor flows freely, and it’s hard _not_ to find a hookup when the clock strikes twelve. But honestly, half the time he’s working, because ghosts freaking love New Year’s, love to show up in those hazy minutes where one year transforms into another. And when he’s not working, like tonight—a possible lead on Sam’s whereabouts having come to nothing—he’s exhausted from driven all day.

So his go-to celebration is this: the reliable _Twilight Zone_ marathon, and cheap champagne—he can usually polish off two bottles before falling asleep. The difference this year is that it’s not Sam passing a magnum back and forth, playing the game where they try to identify an episode during the first thirty seconds. Instead, it’s Cas sitting next to him, fighting champagne giggles a few gulps in and taken utterly by surprise by every single twist ending:

“His glasses!”

“They were the monsters all along!”

“Dean, it was a _cookbook!”_

If Dean could just relax, stop dreading the long-awaited flip of the calendar, it’d actually be a good time. Cas wide-eyed and wondering at the world always triggers something in Dean, a kind of protective awe, as well as a hesitant yearning he doesn’t examine too closely.

He takes a swig of bubbly and turns to the angel. “You wanna flip over to the countdown? We’re actually in the right time zone for the big Times Square shindig, and it’s only a couple minutes to midnight.”

“What happens in Times Square?” asks Cas. He puts his hand on the bottle over Dean’s but doesn’t take it. The touch is casual, friendly. It shouldn’t hit Dean like it does, tingling through him like Magic Fingers. He doesn’t move his hand either.

“A bunch of idiots freeze their asses off while they listen to crappy pop music,” shrugs Dean. “It’s lame, but it’s a tradition.”

“I would like to watch it, then,” says Cas decisively. “I need to learn human traditions.”

Dean changes the channel with thirty seconds to go. He twitches his hand beneath Cas’s, moves his fingers apart so Cas’s slip between, hearing the ex-angel’s breath quicken just a little as he does so.

Times Square is all neon and corporate sponsors, a nightmare if you ask Dean, and he’s been to Hell. But Cas is riveted, watching the giant glimmering ball slowly move down, his hand tightening on Dean’s as the crowd begins to chant: “TEN! NINE! EIGHT!”

Cas takes it up, and Dean grudgingly joins them: “ONE!” they yell together to the busted lamp and the hideous curtains.

“Happy New Year, Cas,” says Dean, rubbing his thumb affectionately over his knuckles. It could just be a friendly gesture. It’s nothing he can’t take back.

“Happy New Year, Dean,” Cas answers, eyes still fixed on the screen. It’s full of couples kissing, some chaste pecks, some just going for it in the middle of a million strangers, tongues and all. “What’s going on now?” asks Cas.

“It’s another tradition, kissing someone at midnight. I don’t know, I think it’s good luck or something. Like whatever you’re doing right when the year turns sets the mood for the whole year.”

“Oh,” says Cas, and then before Dean realizes what’s happening, Cas’s lips are pressed to his, and it’s definitely not a peck, because he’s licking into his mouth and clutching at his shirt, and Dean’s responding like he’s been starved for this, exactly this.

Because, of course, he has been.

Cas pulls away after a moment and stares at Dean, pupils wide with want. “That’s an excellent tradition,” he says breathlessly.

Dean nods. “Yeah,” he says. “One of the best.” He puts the bottle of champagne on the nightstand and pulls his angel into their future.


End file.
